A Blackford County man has been accused of severely shaking his infant son and throwing him into a bassinet.
Jared M. Adams, 30, was charged this week in Blackford Circuit Court with domestic battery resulting in serious bodily injury to a person under the age of 14 and neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury.
According to court documents, Hartford City police launched an investigation Nov. 18 after the baby – who was born Oct. 7 – was brought to IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital with injuries physicians said were consistent with “abusive head trauma or shaken baby syndrome.”
The infant was transferred to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis for treatment of bleeding in his brain.
The victim’s mother told investigators in recent days the baby’s legs had “started shaking really bad” and he seemed congested.
The day the baby was taken to the hospital, his mother said, another relative told her she had been unable to wake the infant up, and he was making “weird sounds.”
Questioned by police, Adams at first suggested the baby might have been injured by his 3-year-old sibling who rocked the baby’s bassinet “really hard” and “likes to throw things.”
He later claimed the infant had rolled off a couch and struck his head.
An investigator wrote that Adams later said that while frustrated over his dealings with the infant and the older child, he “may have jerked him a little bit before I laid him down.”
Given a doll to recreate his actions, Adams shook the doll “back and forth and (threw) it down on the floor.”
“I will note that as he was shaking the doll, its neck/head was bouncing back and forth,”Lt. Cody Crouse wrote in a report.
(Adams also admitted experiencing stress over “never having money,” disagreements with his wife and living with her parents, the document said.)
A physician told Crouse that Adams’ final account of the incident was “consistent” with the baby’s injuries.
“She advises that this probably did occur over a week ago,” the lieutenant wrote on Nov. 19. “However, she believes another incident occurred on the day that he was taken to the hospital.”
A case worker told the investigator that according to physicians, the baby would experience “fine motor skill and muscle strength delays” as a result of his injuries, and might also have “vision issues.”
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